Sexual Assault Suspect A Known Predator In Reston Neighborhood: Police

RESTON, VA — Fairfax County Police say that 22-year-old Anthony Agee of Reston selected and targeted the victim in a sexual assault that occurred Sunday night at a Reston apartment.

"Imagine for a moment everyone's worst nightmare," said Major Ed O’Carroll, bureau chief of the Major Crimes, Cyber and Forensics unit, during a Tuesday afternoon news conference. "An adult woman falls asleep in her living room watching TV, wakes up to a man standing inside her apartment armed with a weapon. But this wasn't a movie."

Although Agee was not known to the victim, O'Carroll said Sunday night's attack was not random.

"He was a predator in that neighborhood and what he did minutes before midnight is the worst of the worst," O'Carroll said, adding that detectives are reviewing all unsolved sexual assault cases in the Reston area to see if they are tied to this case.

The intruder, who police identified as Agee, threatened the woman and ultimately raped her on the floor of her home, according to O'Carroll. After locating the victim's cellphone, Agee fled the apartment with it.

Within 12 minutes of being notified of the attack, officers from the Reston District Station arrived at the apartment in the 2200 block of Lovedale Lane in Reston, according to Capt. Rex Pagerie, the station commander. The victim was taken to a nearby hospital and treated for minor injuries.

Police and K9 units searched the area around the victim's apartment building on Sunday night, but failed to locate the suspect. The did find the victim's cellphone, which had been discarded nearby.

Once detectives from FCPD's cyber and forensics team began working the case, they were made aware of a peeping incident that had taken place in the area on June 9.

"Through good old-fashioned detective work looking through video footage that was provided by a community member from the June event, it caught a predator passing at various times in the night," O'Carroll said.

A member of the community remembered seeing a handprint on a glass sliding door in connection with the peeping incident. Police were able to use the handprint and fingerprints to identify Agee as a suspect in that case and obtained warrants against him on Monday for peeping and indecent exposure.

Detectives from the Fugitive Apprehension Team of the Major Crimes Unit saturated the Reston area and located Agee at 4:15 p.m., within 18 hours of the attack.

"The earlier event in June gave us the ability, with an abundance of probable cause, to arrest him on that," O'Carroll said.

Once Agee was into custody, detectives conducted additional interviews and collected enough evidence to charge him with rape, burglary with intent to commit rape, abduction, and the prevention of a 911 call. He was also charged with peeping and indecent exposure for the June 9 incident.

"We got our guy," O'Carroll said. "This is not a whodunnit anymore. This is 100% solved."

Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis described Agee as a serial offender.

"Now we're going to work backwards and for those women in that particular community or elsewhere, who for whatever reason, did not report an incident or a sighting or an attempt to enter an apartment or a home, it's never too late," he said. "It helps us put the pieces together."

Fairfax County's Victims Services Division is providing assistance to the victim of Sunday night's attack and is available to assistant anyone who requires those services.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to call detectives at 703-246-7800, option 2. Tips can also be submitted anonymously through Crime Solvers by phone – 1-866-411-TIPS (866-411-8477), and by web – Click HERE. Download the ‘P3 Tips’ App and follow the steps to “Fairfax Co Crime Solvers." Anonymous tipsters are eligible for cash rewards of $100 to $1,000.

"We can talk all day about the victory of putting someone in jail and taking them off the street, but I think we should really focus on the victim and what she's going through and what she went through," Pagerie said. "This has impacted her life forever. That weighs heavy on me as the commander of that district. I'm happy that we made an arrest very quickly. We took this person off the street, so he can't do harm to anybody else."